Archive | January 2017

Bakers don’t need to buy bread. Wood choppers are never in need of firewood. I hardly can imagine a general practitioner consults a general practitioner. And your drug dealer, well … you got it.
Some artists may think other artists are no target audience for their attempts to sell their art, but I certainly do buy art from other artists.

For example; This was the first artwork I bought in a gallery 25 years ago. Actually I got it from my friend. It measures 8 x 8 centimeters and is signed with Kaja ’90. We thought it was an artist from Eastern Europe.
In the same gallery, I saw another painting that hit me right in the feels. A weird anciently scene, a gloomy sky, and in the middle a totally out of placed guy with a shocked face, sitting in a folding chair. Around him, a circle of used tissues?
Those days, in my mid twenties, that painting was way too expensive for me, so I let it be. I had forgotten to print in his name in my memory, but it would turn out I didn’t forget the scene.

Later on, I started my own art gallery in the Netherlands. Beside exhibiting my own work, I also showed the art of fellow artists. One day I had invited an artist to come over to the gallery to show his work and I was thumbing through his portfolio. On the very last page I saw … a painting with a lonely guy sitting in a folding chair in a dark and desolate landscape!

It was still available! I was delighted.
The artist was Alfred Ophof. I organized an exhibition for him and he took care that the price of the painting was now within my range, which I’m still thankful for.

A few exhibitions later I ended up with 3 paintings made by Johan de Wijs.
Here you see 2 of them.

One of the most interesting bronzes was this elephant of Anouk de Groot. On the second view (in case you missed it on the first glance) it can be quite a ‘conversation piece’.

But not every artwork has to come from a fancy gallery … Today in the op-shop I paid a few dollars for a precious little artwork. Even the tiny sign (B. Burns ’82) was meticulously neatly done. For me it’s clear this is/was a truly talented person.

I never have been attracted to the word ‘hope’. Hope can do you a favor, but not because of your devotion. In best case you get a favor because she accidentally spills some of her eternal stockpile.

Lately I read about an interesting view on ‘hope’ of somebody with a certain challenge in life. He wrote: “As long as I was hoping for a cure, every morning I was disappointed my illness and misery was still there. One day I said farewell to hope and right away acceptance showed up. And that … was a way more empathetic candidate to deal with”.
He’s right. I would choose for the sometimes inelegant and clumsy, but warm padded and supportive coat of acceptance. Also because acceptance is hanging around right now, while hope is only living in the future. And the future is too broad to hang on to just one unreliable and uninterested ice-queen.